On Board

A little over a year ago I found that I was listening more and more to Zane Lowe's 'new music' programme on Radio 1 - particularly when I settled in for an evening knitting sess. For reasons that probably made no more sense at the time than they do now, I began a one woman campaign to get Zane to say 'knit' on the air by texting in response to his "who's on board" show opener. I was successful, and have even managed to be immortalised as knitting socks for rappers on the Radio 1 website.

So somehow Zane has sort of become linked to knitting in my mind. (I expect that news would thrill him.) A couple of weeks ago he became a father for the second time and it seemed obvious that it was time for me to put my knitting where my mouth (errrr...mobile phone) was.

I considered bootees or a hat but finally settled on the idea of a hoodie. I used a pattern from Chic Knits for Stylish Babies , knit it up in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and added a few embellishments -- specifically a row of colourful beads around the bottom spelling out 'on board' and some specially constructed buttons.

When I came up with the 'on board' hoodie idea I thought sourcing buttons with letters on them would be easy. I'd be tripping over letter buttons - I'd be spoiled for choice.

Ha! How naive I was about the world of letter buttons. Turns out that buttons with letters on them are a rarity. I found 1 style of buttons in the UK - but they were kind of ugly and they were out of stock on 3 or 4 crucial letters. I found 1 style in the US - but they weren't great and I was too impatient to wait in any event.

Not put off by the great letter button shortage of 2008 I came up with the idea of using beads (letter beads being a little easier to source) and creating my own buttons.

I made the buttons by tieing the beads into the centre of plain 4 hole buttons - and I'm quite pleased with the effect. The biggest revelation was that with a lot of determination and a teeny weeny crochet hook you can get aran weight yarn through an itsy bitsy bead hole.

Unfortunately, I didn't learn how to take cool close up pictures of the beads before I sent the hoodie off -- so these fuzzy pictures of the detailing will have to do.









I will confess that I was thinking I'd not post about this -- there is something sort of embarassing about knitting a hoodie for a Radio 1 DJ's baby when you aren't 14. But when I read yesterday that Kate Moss made the news by trying (and failing) to get into the DJ booth with him in Ibiza I decided a handknit baby hoodie wasn't so bad.

Hipness Success is Mine!!

Wahey!! Tonight at 7:42ish pm Zane Lowe uttered the 'k' word, not once, but TWICE on Radio 1. The Hipness of the Knit has been reclaimed!

(For those of you who don't know or care who Zane Lowe is - here is a pic of the gorgeous lace yarn I've purchased from Posh Yarn over the past couple of months. It is beautiful stuff in beautiful colours at really reasonable prices. And there's a competitive element to the shopping that I quite like. New yarn is posted at 6pm every Sunday (UK time) and most of it disappears within MINUTES. You've got to be prepared and you've got to be focused.)

Anyway - back to the real reason for this post.

Tonight Zane played his 'hottest record in the world today', which happened to be a Mark Ronson remix of the genius that is Bob Dylan - Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine) from Blonde on Blonde.

My initial reaction was outrage! How dare he mess with Bob. Bob doesn't need to be remixed.

But actually - I really liked it.

I sent a text of my approval (as part of the Reclaim the Hipness of the Knit campaign) and Zane read it out:
Bob with a beat. I love this. Still knitting. Soo.
He added, "probably knitting faster inspired by the music" (or something similar - but definitely the 'k' word again).

Sure, some (ie anyone I've mentioned this to) might say - so what? But I'm happy. I feel I've accomplished something by getting one of the UK's leading trendy DJ's, a Sony radio award winner to say the k word twice. What I've accomplished is vague at best - but I'm pleased!

Now.....what next.....

Bits and Pieces....

Thanks so much for all of the lovely comments on the Alpine Lace scarf. I am pleased with how it turned out and if the other VLT patterns turn out as well I expect I'll be making most of them!
What's Next?: ummmm, haven't decided for sure. I have some Handmaiden Sea Silk I'd love to use but haven't decided on a pattern. Perhaps the Melon Scarf in VLT? Or maybe I should do look further afield (but then I think - why??)


Mystery Stole 3: We're on clue 4 now and it appears something dramatic is going to happen in clue 5. Clue 4 is the longest clue (135 rows for the standard length stole, 215 rows for the longer version which I'm making). I've done about 152 rows of the clue on the black one, and 104 rows of the clue on the white one.

Melanie has instructed us to put a lifeline in about 48 rows before the end of the clue, and the pattern and edging established appear to end at the last row of this clue. What the heck can be coming next?


Hedera Socks (aka freakish heel flap socks): I finished the Hedera Socks. I really liked the simple lace pattern and found it a relaxing knit. I was (and remain) confused by the pattern instructions for a freakishly long heel flap. I decided to follow the pattern despite my doubts -- but even now can't see any reason for it. So, I will make the socks again but with a more usual length heel flap. I'll let you know if that turns out to be a mistake!

My Shiny New Citizenship: And unrelated to anything knitting today I got a letter from the Home Office confirming that my application for UK citizenship has been approved. I'll attend an official ceremony sometime in the next month or so and then I'll be a fully naturalised UK citizen (hanging on with love and affection to her Canadian nationality all the while!).

On Board Mission (aka 'reclaim the hipness of the knit')(aka make Zane Lowe say the K word on 'in new music we trust' on Radio 1): - In case you thought I had seen sense and given up - I haven't. But Zane's on hols at the moment and I think getting Annie Mac to say the K word would be far to easy.

From Monogamy to Tart.... I blame Zane Lowe

I've never been someone to have many knitting projects on the go at one time. In fact, for most of my life I've been a one project kind of gal. But (and perhaps I should blame the bad influence of that modern music Zane Lowe* plays) lately I've become a bit of a project tart. I currently have 2 pairs of socks (3 if you count the ones I've decided to send to the frog pond), the Alpine Lace scarf, a Rowan denim cardigan I found languishing at the bottom of my stash and I'm about to cast on for the Mystery Stole 3 (wahey!) and my gorgeous god daughter's birthday gift.

I realise that many people survive quite happily with 10's of projects on the needles...but I'm not one of them. I'm a bit (ahem) of a control freak. And (sad confession) I tend to 'schedule' my knitting. I can juggle a portable sock (for commuting), a lace or complicated pattern for 'quiet' time and a simple project for tv time... but if I add a fourth project -where does it fit? Perhaps an excel spreadsheet with auto alarm functions is required....

CHECK THIS OUT: Next time you find yourself complaining to yourself about the 100, 200 or 300 stitches on your needle, or whinging because the yarn and needles are tooooooo fine check out this site The Princess Diaries . It's a blog of two people both tackling this gorgeous pattern from Heirloom Knitting . I've seen reference to rows with 865 stitches. eeeek!

It's an amazing project and I'll definitely be checking back there for updates. (Although for obvious reasons the blog seems to be more a 'once every few months' type blog than daily!) If you do check it out - leave them some encouragement. In one of the entries they compare knitting the shawl to running a marathon - and from my marathon experience I can say the encouragement from onlookers was always appreciated.

* Speaking of Zane Lowe the 'Reclaim the Hipness of the Knit' (aka get Zane to say the 'k' word) is still underway and still unsuccessful. I think I may be the only knitter who listens to Zane. (In fact I may be the only person over 25 who listens to Zane.)

But I won't give up easily. Or at all. I'm weird that way.

Blogs - Who Knew?

I confess that until recently I had strongly held views on blogs. (If you've visited more than once you'll have found I have strongly held views on lots of things. Like a lot of people it's fair to say, the less I know on subject the more strongly held my views.) Anyway - I felt blogs were for self absorbed folk who had too much time on their hands.

Ha! What a fool!

Before the world of knitting forums and blogs I had never felted, made a shawl or knit a sock. Inspired by the amazing yarns and patterns I've found on blogs and in forums over the past 2 months I've made 2 felted bags, 5 pairs of socks, 2 stoles and 1 shawl. Crazy! And the list of things I want to make and the yarns I want to knit with just grows by the day. My yarn stash has grown an embarassing amount, and I have gadgets and needles of every description...and still every day I find something new.

I've been a knitter since the age of 5 or 6 - but it's fair to say that I've been exposed to more aspects of knitting in the past 2 months than in the many (many) (sigh) years before.

This week I've decided to attack the Alpine knit scarf in Victorian Lace Today and yesterday I googled to see if I could find any pictures of finished scarves by other knitters. In that trawl I found some pictures from a knitter (Laura) of a different shawl in the book. It's fair to say the shawl hadn't really made any impact on me from the book -- but the pictures on this blog were stunning! And zooooooom - the shawl moves up the 'make me' list.

And this week - my blog became a 'mini (very) point of interest' on an American forum from Knitty.com. One of the posters there was interested in knitting the Hanami stole, googled it and hit on my blog. It gave them all another view of Melanie's lovely pattern and a few things to consider in knitting it.

Through that, one of the forum members found the entries on the Kaffe Fassett coat. By some strange coincidence one of her knitting group members had brought the pattern to their meeting the night before and sent me a message to tell me. How cool is that!

I have found a couple of knit forums (the one listed above, and the Angel Board) to share ideas on, so many blogs I love to visit, 3 fab new local yarn shops and sooooo many amazing online shops (possibly too many if my credit card bill is anything to go by) -- I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the possibilities.

But it's great!

Great Zane Lowe Radio 1 'On Board' Mission
Texts sent so far are:
Day 1: Soo is knitting up socks and on board.
Day 2: On board and knitting a shawl. Soo.
Day 3: On board and loving the knitting groove. Soo

On day 3 I did get a shout out. But I'm not satisfied --he dropped the knitting reference and just said I was on board. Bah!!! This ain't over yet - Zane - not by a long shot.

Knitty, Witty, Woo - I like the idea of other knitters texting. But I do think we should stick to some rules. (I love rules.) (Even when undertaking some strange 'reclaim the hipness of the knit' campaign, I love rules.)(I'm a lousy revolutionary.)

1. You can only text if you are actually listening. (7pm, Radio 1, Monday through Thursday - text 81199)
2. You can only send one text per evening.
3. Text should contain 'on board' and a knitting reference.

Obviously - you can ignore these rules - but I like to think that slowly over time he'll get a few more knitting texts each day until we break him and he finally sends out some love to the knitters.

I'm actually out tomorrow night so I'll continue the campaign on Monday (as per rule 1).

Taming the Bayerische

Yesterday I finished knitting up the second Bayerische sock. They do look lovely in red I think...
This is my fifth pair of socks and I think this addiction has firmly taken root. I have more sock yarn than I can list, and at last count had 7 (yep 7) different sock books -- all acquired since mid April. Expect to see a few more socks gracing this blog.

Below is my "Sockalong Sockathon" output. The goal was to complete 1 pair Opal Rainforest (check), 1 pair Monkey socks (check), and one pair Bayerische (check). The other two pair represent waiting time between finishing Monkey and the arrival of the red yarn for the Bayerische.

I finally had to graft the socks myself. And for a few moments I confess I started to doubt the existence of the Grafting Fairy. But I think it was just a scheduling problem and like Linus with the Great Pumpkin I won't let one let disappointment diminish my faith - I will continue to believe in the Grafting Fairy.

What's Next?

I'm still dithering about what to cast on next. I'm like a kid in a candy shop -- every time I stumble across a new pattern or yarn I change my mind!! I think I'll pull out Victorian Lace Today and see if I can settle on something.

....and finally - The Great Zane Lowe 'On Board' Mission

Often on a week night I find myself settling down with a bit of knitting around 7 -- and turning on the radio (which for reasons of laziness is always tuned to Radio 1) and hearing Zane Lowe 'shouting out' (young 'un talk) text messages from listeners who have got in touch to let him know they are 'on board' (more young 'un talk).

I quite enjoy the show - it's made up of mostly new music. For some of it I reassuringly find myself muttering under my breath "if that is what passes for music today" in much the same way my parents did. And much of it I reassuringly (in a contradictory sort of way) quite like - so there is some life left in me yet!

As someone who is almost definitely not part of Zane's target demographic (being very much the wrong side of 30) I decided to let Zane know we knitters are out there and, well, 'on board'. So tonight was night 1 of the text Zane Lowe with a 'Soo is knitting up socks and on board' message. I'm committed to texting every night (well, every night I'm around) until I get a shout out to knitters. Send some of that love to knitters Zane!

I'll keep you posted on results.....